uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
How to pronounce uh in American English
uh
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Americans pronounce uh as uh (/ʌ/). It's 1 sound in 1 syllable. One vowel, one syllable — short and clean. What you see is what you say.
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Every sound in "uh".
1 syllable, 1 sound. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
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Watch out
Common pronunciation mistakes in American English.
The textbook way isn't wrong — it's just not how anyone actually says it.
01
Pronouncing the first syllable too fully.
Don't pronounce the first syllable too fully. The unstressed syllable reduces to a schwa — the lazy "uh" sound — in casual speech.
UH→uh
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
Is the American pronunciation of "uh" different from British English?
American English uses different vowel shapes, a relaxed retroflex R, and connected-speech tricks like flap-T and glottal-stop T that British Received Pronunciation generally avoids. The respell "uh" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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